The Good Old Stuff (28 page)

The only thing in the big room not suitable to a practicing Sybarite was the hard, narrow cot on which he slept. There were deep couches, a massive gray stone fireplace, paintings of a certain freedom in deep niches, softly lighted.

He untied the sarong, dropped it, stepped out of it. The shower stall was big enough to hold a seven-handed poker game. The dressing room adjoined the bath. As he was toweling himself he heard the descending roar of the amphib. That would be Lew Cherezack flying in the ladies, right on schedule.

He selected a gray casual shirt, trousers of a deeper shade of gray. As he walked from the dressing room into the bedroom he heard Lew’s knock at the door.

Lew came in, his boxer pup’s face slyly wrinkled. He turned with an expansive gesture. “Look what I got!”

A blonde and a brunette. Both tall and grave, with knowing eyes, sweet, wise mouths. “The blonde,” Lew said, “is Georgie Wane. Blackie is called June Luce. Say hello to the boss, girls.”

“How do you do, Mr. Falkner,” they said gravely, almost in unison.”

“Nice to see you. You know what the job is?”

Georgie, the blonde, turned spokesman. “If the job includes anything over and above what Mr. Empiro stated, Mr. Falkner, the deal is off. I want that understood.”

Park grinned. “I left out a few details, but nothing either of you will balk at. Four young men are coming to visit me. They should be along any minute now. You are each being paid two hundred dollars a day. I want you to be as charming as possible to my guests, and I insist that they be kept in ignorance of the fact that I’m paying you. Now here’s the additional instruction. There are two of you and four young men. Both of you are lovely enough to have learned how to handle men. I want them played off against each other. I want their beautiful friendship split up in any way you can manage it. Each night, at twelve, you go off duty, as far as I am concerned. Lew will show you your rooms right now. The doors lock. You have the freedom of the place. We’re well equipped for amusement here. Tennis, badminton, swimming—in the Gulf and in the pool. There is only one restriction. I do not want either of you to leave the island until, in my opinion, the job is done.”

“Fair enough,” June Luce said. “But who are we supposed to be?”

Park grinned. “Call yourselves nieces of mine. That ought to spice their imaginations a little.”

When Lew took them out, Falkner went down two flights to the kitchens. Mrs. Mick Rogers, cook and wife of the battered ex-pug who was Park’s man of all work, smiled at him. Francie, the doughy little maid, was at one of the worktables finishing the construction of a tray of canapés.

“Set for the deluge, Mrs. Mick?” Falkner asked.

“What’s eight people, counting yourself? A nothing. Practice, yet.”

Just then Mick drove in across the private causeway from the mainland with the station wagon. Park walked out the side door of the smaller kitchen and across to the parking space. Mick slid neatly to a stop.

The first one got out, looked hesitantly at Falkner. “I—I’m Bill Hewett. Are you the host?”

Hewett was tall, frail, gangly. Physically he seemed barely out of his adolescence, but his pale-blue eyes were knowing and there was a downward sardonic twist about his wide mouth.

“Glad to see you, Hewett. Let me see. You’re the copywriter, aren’t you?”

“Right. With Lanteen, Soran and Howliss. I write deathless prose for TV commercials. And this is Prine Smith, our newspaperman.”

Prine was dark, stocky, muscular, with a square strong jaw and an aggressive handshake. He said, “We’re pretty much in the dark about all this, Falkner, and—”

Park smiled. “Let’s talk about it over cocktails.”

Hewett broke in. “And this is the actor in the group. Guy Darana.”

Guy was tall, with a superb body, classic profile, brown, tightly curled hair. But there was a vacant docility about his expression, an aimless childlike amiability in his eyes.

“Howya,” he said softly in the richest of baritones.

The fourth and last was a wiry redhead with pointed features, a jittery hyperthyroid manner. “You hear that?” he said. “The actor in the group, he calls Darana. What about me? What
about Stacey Brian? I make with the voice on the radio. Character parts. I work at it. All that hunk has to do is revolve slowly to give them a look at both sides of the profile.”

“Radio is a dying medium,” Darana said languidly.

Falkner sensed that it was an old argument. He shook hands with Stacey Brian. Mick Rogers was taking the luggage from the tailgate.

“We’ll take our own stuff up. Don’t bother,” Hewett said.

“Mick, you show them their rooms,” Park said. “As soon as you all freshen up, find your way down to that front terrace. You can see it from here.”

Falkner went back up to his room, started the music, went back down to the front terrace. Mick had already changed to white jacket, and he was putting the small terrace bar in order.

“Jittery as hell,” Mick said. “All of them. And seven thousand questions. I didn’t know nothing.”

“Make the drinks heavy for the boys, Mick. And light for our two new women.”

“Festivities about to begin?” Taffy said, close behind him. Park turned. She wore a white blouse pulled down off her deeply tanned shoulders. The gay skirt swung as she walked. A hammered-silver Aztec bracelet looked impossibly heavy on her slim wrist. Her white hair was a purer form of silver, heavy, thick, molten, alive.

“Jezebel,” he whispered. “Lilith! Krithna of the purple seas.”

“Don’t mind me,” Mick said.

“This,” said Taffy, “is what you get for inviting little girls who could be my daughters. I have to keep up my morale.”

There was no more time for talk then because Stacey Brian came out onto the terrace. The sun was slipping toward the blue Gulf. The others came, were introduced. Mick was chanting, “Step up and name it and I can make it. They go down like honey and then kick you behind the ear.” Taffy sat on the wall and looked smug. She made Georgie and June look awkward and young, and she made the others look. She winked solemnly at Park Falkner.

Conversation was general, polite, aimless. Georgie Wane had inconspicuously drifted to the side of Guy Darana. He looked at her with mild, sleepy approval.

June Luce said in a silky soft voice, “Miss Angus, I must tell you. My mother took me to see you in
Time for Play
—oh, ages ago! I think I was six at the time. That was before you became such a successful model, wasn’t it?”

Park concealed his grin by taking a drink. June looked with rapt interest at Taffy. Taffy looked puzzled. She said, “My goodness! Now I know I’m ancient! I’ve just forgotten how to make kitty-talk. Why, if you’d said anything like that to me five years ago I’d have thought of some nasty-nice way to call attention to the way you’re letting yourself get—” She stopped. “Oh, I mustn’t be rude. I’m sorry.” She beamed at June.

June’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with me?”

“Nothing, sister,” Mick said. “You’re a nice dish. You just ain’t bright. You challenged the champ. Now shut up, or she’ll make you so mad you’ll be sick to your stomach and she’ll just sit here grinning at you.”

Taffy pouted. “He never lets me have any fun.”

Prine Smith walked scowling over to Park, planted his feet, his stocky legs spread, his square hand holding the cocktail glass. “Look!” he said. “I don’t go for cat-and-mouse games. Maybe I’m not properly civilized. So you’re a big enough shot to get strings pulled to get us all off at the same time. So you play on curiosity in a smart enough way to get us all down here, expenses paid. You’re out after laughs, Falkner. Let’s blow away the smoke screen and talk sense for a minute.”

“Glad to,” Park said. “I guess I’m just a nosy type. I like mysteries. Nine months ago the four of you lived in a big apartment in the Village, two blocks from Sheridan Square. You’ve split up now, but that was the status quo. Hewett had a girl friend, lovely from all reports, named Lisa Mann. On a hot afternoon, June fourth to be exact, Lisa Mann, using a key that Hewett had given her, let herself into the apartment. A girl named Alicia French happened to see her. Alicia lived in the next apartment down the hall. All four of you were able to prove that you were out that afternoon. The first one to get back to the apartment was Guy Darana. He returned a little after eleven that night. No one has seen Lisa Mann since. Apparently she never returned to her own apartment. There was an investigation. Her parents are well-to-do. I asked you
four down here because things like that intrigue me. I hope that during your stay here one of you will, directly or indirectly, admit to his guilt in the death of Miss Mann. Does that blow away the smoke, Smith?”

Prine Smith stared at him. “Are you crazy?”

Hewett said softly, “I know she’s dead. I know it. She would have come back.”

“Young girls disappear every day,” Stacey Brian said. “That she happened to come to our place was coincidental.”

June and Georgie listened with great intentness, their mouths open a bit.

“Are you serious, Falkner?” Prine Smith asked, still scowling. “Do you actually think that just by having us down here you can break open a case that the metropolitan police haven’t been able to unravel?”

Park shrugged. “It might work that way.”

“I don’t get it. If one of us should be guilty, which is silly even to think of, wouldn’t you have given him warning by now?”

“Of course.”

Prine Smith sighed. “Okay. Have your fun. It’s your money, and I guess you know what you want to do with it. Me, I’m going to relax and enjoy myself.”

“That’s what you’re all supposed to do,” Park said amiably.

Hewett had been drinking steadily and with purpose. He said, “Her eyes were tilted a little, and the black lashes were so long they were absurd. She came up to my shoulder, and when she laughed she laughed deep in her throat.”

“Knock it off,” the redheaded Stacey Brian said sharply. “Drop it, Bill.”

“Sure,” Bill Hewett said. “Sure.”

The dusk was upon them, and the music was a wry dirge. Taffy’s face was shadowed. A gull swung by, tilting in the wind, laughing with disdain. The soft waves were the tired breath of the water. Death whispered in the thin jacaranda leaves.

Hewett laughed with excessive harshness. “Sure,” he said again. “Forget her. We’re all nice clean young men, we four. Our best friends don’t have to tell us, because we’ve bought
the right products. We have built-in value, four-way virtue. Remember the brand name. Go to your nearest crematory and ask for our product. That’s a joke, son. But forget little dead girls because little dead girls have nothing in common with these four upright, sterling, time-tested young men of market-proven value. You can’t write a commercial about a dead girl. The product will never sell.”

“Shut up, Bill,” Guy said.

June hugged her elbows, though the dusk was warm. Mick’s face, behind the bar, was carved of dark stone. Over on the mainland a diesel train bellowed, a distant creature of swamps and prehistory.

“You people can eat any time,” Mrs. Mick said.

Taffy lay on her face
in the sun by the pool. Falkner sat cross-legged beside her, rubbing the oil into the long clean lines of her back.

“Mmmmm,” she said, with sleepy appreciation.

June came to the edge of the pool, her dark hair plastered wet to her head. She hung on and said, “Hello, people.”

“How goes the war of the sexes?” Falkner asked.

June pursed her lips. “Georgie has attracted the big handsome hunk, Guy Darana, and also Mr. Muscles, the newspaper guy. I am left with the agile little redhead, who can sling passes from any off-balance position. Hewett is not interested.”

“How is Georgie doing?”

“Reasonable. Guy and Prine Smith are now on the beach showing off.”

“Back to the battle, June,” Park directed. “Take Stacey Brian down there and see if you can confuse things.”

June swam away. Taffy yawned. “Legs,” she said.

Park moved down a bit, filled his palm with oil. Taffy sat up suddenly.

“No, dearie. I think I do this myself,” she said. She took the bottle from him. “An aged creature like me has to be well smeared with this glop or the wrinkles pop out like wasteland erosion.” As she worked she looked over at him. “Falkner, my
man, this little house party makes me feel physically ill. Why don’t you break it up?”

“Just when everybody’s having so much fun?”

“Fun! They’ve all got the jumps.”

“Sure they have. Right from the beginning each of them, the three un-guilty ones, whoever they might be, have had a dirty little suspicion. They were trying to forget it. Now I’ve reawakened the whole thing. They’re drinking too much and laughing too loudly, and they’re all wound up like a three dollar watch. We just wait and see.”

Her brown eyes were suddenly very level, very grave. “But you usually add another ingredient, Park.”

“This time, too. Maybe tonight.”

“Do you really think one of them killed that girl?”

“I do.”

“But why?” Taffy wailed.

“Why do people kill people? Love, money, position, hate, envy, passion, jealousy. Lots of reasons.”

“Please be careful, Park. Don’t let anything happen to you.”

“Am I that valuable?”

“With you gone, what would I do for laughs?”

He leaned his hand tenderly against her bare shoulders and pushed her into the pool.

Again the dusk, and the music and the cocktails. And Mick behind the bar and Taffy in pale green and all of them suntanned by the long hot day, tingling from the showers, ravenous, bright-eyed.

“I don’t want to be a bore, Park,” Prine Smith said, “but what are you accomplishing?”

Falkner shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. Maybe we ought to talk. That is, if nobody objects.”